Archive for the ‘Election 2012 (November)’ Category

I got all my work done, and rather than get caught up on 10targets.com, I decided it was time to tell people how this general election is going to go down. Probably, it will be via the elevator. Anyway, I don’t need to force wisecracks because they happen anyway, especially if a candidate has a phallic-sounding name.

President and Vice President: Joel Edelman and Lance Armstrong

It’s time for the least important thing on the ballot. Think about it: When 10 people vote on something, each of those votes is 10% of the electorate. With more than 200 million US citizens able to vote for this contest, well, you know where I’m going. So have some fucking fun with it.

Guess what? My entire life I had been looking forward to the 2012 general election. Do you know why? Because it’s the first one in which I would be at least 35 years old. That’s right. I can be the president. And that’s what I’m going to do. I am writing myself in as president.

But I need a vice president as well. Well, I might as well use the same strategy that I used for the primary. What better way to meet someone I have always wanted to meet than to have them be running mate? Pure genius, it is. But at the same time, it needs to be someone that nobody would want as president. That way, no one will ever assassinate me. See? I’m thinkin’.

And that’s why I will be writing Lance Armstrong in as my vice president. He has everything: Name recognition, access to money, and the contempt of our society. How perfect is that? So it’s an Edelman/Armstrong ticket in 2012.

United States Senator: Dianne Feinstein

Similar to my annual Oscars sheet, I usually get one candidacy right. This time it’s going to be Senator. Elizabeth Emken is everything I don’t want in a candidate. She lives in Danville. She doesn’t understand how the world works. And she has a chip on her shoulder because her son is autistic.

Just in general, don’t get me started on autism. What constitutes the condition has been widened over the years so more people can “have” it, and it’s become the Dallas Cowboys of conditions. “Don’t talk shit about the Dallas Cowboys,” people always say. Well I do. And Emken is Tony Romo and Leon Lett, rolled into one.

I got to vote for Feinstein in my first ever election, 18 years ago. She’s the Glass Joe of ballots. You’re always going to get that one right. This could be my last chance to practice my star punches, but I will still enjoy six more years of her success.

United States Representative, CA-19: Zoe Lofgren

The voter information pamphlet screwed up Robert Murray’s candidate statement by not putting the bullets in front of the bulleted statements, and it all goes downhill from there. His occupation is “businessman/lawyer/entrepreneur.” Sounds kind of redundant, or perhaps it was a tie between “businessman” and “lawyer,” so he decided to add “entrepreneur” as a tiebreaker. His statement is also very presumptuous. For example, I didn’t know I already knew what it took to raise a family and run a business.

Anyway, his whole tack is that he doesn’t like the national debt. Well, who owns the bonds that cover the national debt? Mostly, it’s Americans. And with interest rates so low, it’s clear there is a lot of demand for buying our debt. His statement is all talking points and platitudes (ugh, now I can’t use either of those phrases again).

Lofgren speaks in hyperbole as well, but more importantly her votes have reflected my values often enough that I will continue to vote for her. And it’s nice that I will at least get another one right on this ballot, because she’s got no chance to lose.

California State Senator, District 15: Jim Beall

California has a jungle primary now, because you’re all assholes and voted to have one. Like jungle volleyball, it sucks. Well, the top two vote-getters in the district during the primary were Joe Coto and Jim Beall. These were the two candidates that I had the hardest time choosing between in the first place. I went for Beall last time and have no reason to think otherwise this time. I don’t appreciate all the negative mailers that Beall has sent out to smear Coto, but whatever. That’s tiebreaker shit, and I already made a decision in June. See why jungle primaries are retarded?

California State Assembly, District 28: Paul Fong

Stupid WordPress. I accidentally activated a keyword shortcut, and then when I hit Undo, it deleted the entire paragraph on this race. I hate typing things twice. I hate typing things twice. Anyway, in June there were two candidates on the ballot: Paul Fong and Chad Walsh. Well, what a shock. Those two were the top finishers in the primary. And now I get to vote for the same person twice. I don’t like any kind of repetition. So anyway, I will continue to vote for Paul Fong. Lame-ass jungle primaries.

Santa Clara Valley Water District, District 2: David Ginsborg

The candidate I wanted to vote for didn’t submit a statement. His name is Drew Spitzer. Spitzer! For the water district! That’s perfect. Oh well. Maybe next time he will submit a statement. Barbara Keegan is well qualified, but she made a mistake: One of her flunkies came by with a card listing her endorsements (including Charlotte Powers, who I helped win a city council seat in 1992), and per usual, I ignored the knock on the door. However, what handwritten note was written on the card? “Sorry to miss you.” Miss me? You weren’t even here! None of that malarkey, Joe Biden or otherwise. That leaves David Ginsborg. An endorsement from Rod Diridon Jr. goes a long way with me. Also, under occupation he includes “father.” Fuck yeah.

Santa Clara County Open Space Authority, District 4: Garnetta Annable

Benjamin Cogan is an automotive technician. I wish he had put the rag down for a minute so he could have typed up a candidate statement. I would have liked to have seen what he would bring to the table. Dorsey Moore talks about solar, which is a big keyword for me, but he is also heavy into the jargon, using the phrase “user experience.” I am a user experience professional, as it were, and I’m sure that he and I have nothing in common in our careers. Nobody, not even me, should be using the word “experience” as a noun unless you’re talking about Dr. Frank. The incumbent is Garnetta Annable. I don’t recognize voting for this before, so maybe it’s some new thing that resulted from a measure passing. That’s probably it. But there is an incumbent already. So I really don’t know. My job is to connect the broken arrow next to my candidate with a pen. Garnetta is 66, so she will make sure old people will be able to use everything, so that’s great.

Proposition 30: Yes

I don’t hide the fact that I am a big fan of Governor Jerry Brown. And you have to admit: There have been a lot fewer controversies than during Arnold Schwarzenegger’s time in office. One of the things Brown said was “no new taxes, without voter approval.” Well, guess what 30 is? Yep.

The budget was on time as well. Requiring a 55% majority instead of 2/3 helped with that, of course, but one of the other tricks was to put a state-size version of the “fiscal cliff” you might have heard about with the federal government. In short, if 30 fails, there will be another $6 billion in public service cuts for the current budget year. The current, 2012-2013 budget year. Remember that for when we get to 38. Ninety percent of that is what’s referred to as K-14 schools, essentially everything except four-year colleges. The money comes from incomes higher than $250,000. Specifically, it changes the state income tax rate from 9.3% to as high as 12.3% for those making over $500,000 per year. Today, anyone making $48,029 per year or $40 million per year pays the same state income tax rate.

If you want to vote no it is because you vote no on everything. The standard no argument is being made by the standard no arguers: taxpayers associations and small business associations. They hate everything. They don’t understand the reason their business is still small is because they don’t know how to run a business. Instead they point fingers at regulations and other liberal bastions of hell. If only we had a supply-side economy.

Proposition 31: No

Some states have a two-year budget cycle instead of a one-year budget cycle. The idea is that this will somehow limit spending. However, it hasn’t. The “off-year” budgets tend to mimic the annual budget that it was designed to replace. The reason for this is, just because the state goes to a biennial budget, it doesn’t mean most businesses and public works departments don’t still work on an annual basis. Two years is too long to do the same thing, no matter what it is.

This would have been easier to sell when we had overdue budgets and $20 billion budget deficits. However, we’ve gotten the budget under control, relatively speaking. The economy is improving. Thankfully we didn’t have the opportunity to fall for this when it could have seemed like a sensible decision.

There are other individual aspects of 31 that are interesting, such as allowing governors to reduce spending as needed, but the bad outweighs the good. If you like to do the same thing for twice as long as we have been doing them, then you would like 31.

Proposition 32: No

Half of a solution, 32 prevents unions from using payroll deductions for political stuff. But that’s how they get their money. Still, getting money out of politics is fine.

But wait. What about everything else? Oh, maybe someday that will be addressed. But for now, 32 only deals with the union side of the money problem in politics.

Usually the ads that yell the most are the wrongest. And the ads are pretty lame. They spin this in an inaccurate fashion. And many of them use a made-up word: exempted. Perhaps you mean “excepted” or “exempt.” That’s normally grounds for dismissal, but I have to overlook this. Even if you assume there will be similar measures taken with other forms of campaign contributions, they haven’t happened yet, and until they do, there is an imbalance that will cause low-information voters to do more stupid shit.

The reason you vote yes on 32 is because you don’t like unions and would like to shut them up for good

Proposition 33: No

I remember this one. It was Proposition 17. Ah, I miss the shit show. Basically, people with gaps in their insurance coverage would then have to pay more for insurance, because those who don’t would get to pay less. That would make it more likely people wouldn’t get insurance at all because it would cost too much. So like a lot of things, it sounds like a good idea until you think about what will actually happen.

The reason you vote yes is because you’re having trouble budgeting your existing insurance coverage and could benefit from the discount. And in fact two years ago, I voted yes. The economy sucked. These short-term measures seemed important to maintain a quality of life that was more endangered than it is today. But now with the economy finally getting a little better, it’s easier to look at the big picture. Having uninsured motorists costs all of us more in the long run. I’ve changed my mind.

Proposition 34: Yes

There’s not much to say. You’re either for the death penalty or you aren’t, unless you’re John Kerry. Then you’re for it until you’re against it.

The main arguments for repealing the death penalty involve innocent people convicted and sentenced to death. Big deal. They still have to sit in jail for life. How is that better? No, the reason I am against the death penalty is because red tape makes it cost more than keeping them alive. Also, it does not deter crime. The only thing it does is provide closure for some victims’ families. I say “some” because they don’t all feel this way. And besides it doesn’t matter to me what they think anyway, because their bias is no better or worse than anyone else’s. I’m not going to grant them any extra affordance. If gang violence is such a problem in our society, then why do we allow this mentality among, say, the likes of Marc Klaas. Let’s devote resources to when the kids could still be alive. Amber Alerts are awesome. The death penalty is not.

Proposition 35: Yes

I like to be the one who zigs where people zag. But sometimes I can’t do it. Proposition 35 essentially makes it so human traffickers would now have to register as sex offenders. This is not going to be a deterrent. People traffic humans because it’s lucrative. Does anyone commit crime because they think they can get away with it? Not really. It’s because it’s an easy way to bring some scratch. In addition, this goes after the symptom and not the root cause, which I hate: It doesn’t reduce demand for sex workers. This is no different than the war on drugs. Demand-side economy, people. Affect demand, affect the supply, not the other way around.

The reason you vote no is because you like small government. All this does is create more rules and more bureaucracy. But of course social conservatives like government spending when it controls people’s private lives. So really only libertarians will be voting no. These types of props annoy me.

Proposition 36: Yes

It would be weird for people to vote one way on 34 but another way on 36, but it will happen. The death penalty is a very clear concept and something most people don’t need to spend a lot of time thinking about. Three Strikes maybe isn’t so cut and dried.

We’ve all heard the stories about a criminal’s third strike being relatively less egregious than the first two. Well, 36 is addressing that. Only “serious” or “violent” felonies will count. Otherwise, I guess it’s just a foul ball. There are exceptions, but that’s the general idea.

On paper it still seems like a bad idea, but let’s take our heads out of the sand for a moment. We’ve built hella jails since Three Strikes passed in the ’90s. Crime hasn’t gone down as a result of Three Strikes. People commit crimes because they have to or because they’re bored. Life in prison? At least then you wouldn’t have to cook. And that’s just the half of it. Think of all the people that get let out of jail early so the Three Strikes people can stay in.

If you vote no, you better be ready to vote for some more prisons so we have somewhere to put them. That kind of sounds like government spending, though, doesn’t it?

Proposition 37: No

This one makes me have to take a shower every time I think about it. Let me explain it as clearly as I can. The point of 37 is to identify certain foods as having genetically modified ingredients. It also restricts the use of “natural,” which is a nice-to-have. This one is like 32 for me. It’s putting certain foods at a disadvantage for no reason. It’s part of a larger solution that hasn’t been laid out yet. There’s no reason it couldn’t have been laid out here, but it wasn’t.

Look, we’ve had genetically modified food for years. Think about how big a cauliflower was when you were a kid. Now think about how big they are now. Cauliflower has been the size of my head my entire life! How do you think it got that way?

Essentially, if 37 were enforced properly, just about every piece of produce, including organic produce, would have a GMO sticker on it. All this is going to do is scare consumers. We already have a societal problem when it comes to getting people to eat their fruits and vegetables. How does this help that? The few items that wouldn’t have the sticker will cost more because more people will foolishly want them.

I’ll be transparent. I love genetically modified food. We’re going to solve world hunger with this shit. We’re already on the way there. We can’t discourage this kind of technology. I don’t give a fuck that Monsanto and DuPont are behind the no campaign. I understand why they are against it, and I know those two companies are bastards. But I’m not going to support 37 out of spite. Just because Monsanto poisoned an entire town with polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) production doesn’t mean everything they do is wrong. Actually, to stubbornly frown upon every action they make, regardless of potential result, is quite the conservative viewpoint.

But all of that aside, if you want to mark food as being modified, fine. But there should be no exemptions. It can go right there, next to that pareve and Circle K stuff. Just don’t give me that “you have a right to know” BS. I will tell you. Your food is already genetically modified. And the crops that weren’t? They crosspolinated with crops that were. Blame the bees. Don’t blame me.

Proposition 38: Yes

I hate Molly Munger. There aren’t non-misogynistic words out there that I can use to describe how I feel about her. She can’t understand normal thinking. There.

Whenever we have two competing education propositions, they both fail. People don’t understand that only one can become law, so they vote no on both. And it’s already so hard to get a single one of these to pass. Ugh. Anyway, more on 30 and 38.

The one with more votes, if both pass, is the one that becomes law. And 30 is way better than 38, because 38 wouldn’t take effect until 2013. That means the cuts in the budget I talked about if 30 didn’t pass would still happen. In addition, the tax increase is spread across all who make $7,316 or more. Granted, the increase is small, but poor people don’t save money. (That’s why they’re poor!) You’re taking purchasing power away from them, and that’s bad for the economy. The reason you take money from rich people is because they were saving it, and idle money doesn’t grow the economy.

So why not vote no? Because 38 is getting its ass handed to it in the polls. Of course, Munger’s brother, who is behind 32 incidentally, has decided to drag the state down with him, so he has spent $8 million on killing 30. Just because these propositions are about youth doesn’t mean you need to act like a goddamn child. So 30, which was leading in the polls, will probably fail as well. Thanks for nothing.

The one piece that is missing from this is why Ms. Munger is doing this. She is spending $30 million of her own money to support 38. Whatever gains she would get from 30’s failure can’t be worth that much. Is it really just vanity?

You have several reasons to vote no. Spite is a big one. Also because you want to help 30 pass if they both pass. However, it’s really unlikely that 38 will get more votes than 30. Might as well go for both and be glad it will be decided by more than one vote.

Proposition 39: Yes

Three years ago, we were having another wondrous budget cycle, in which a 2/3 majority in the State Senate and Assembly were required to pass a budget for the governor to sign, and it just wasn’t happening. Similar to Ben Nelson during the healthcare reform discussions, a few choice Republicans brought out the sausage-maker to get some favors made, in exchange for their budget-approving votes. One of those was to let businesses that had income in California count that income as being earned in other states, if those other states had a more favorable tax plan for them. So what a shock that corporate income tax fell as companies reported all their in-state income in a different state.

Think it isn’t that simple. Well, taxpayer groups lead those who oppose 39. That tells me all I need to know.

The reason you vote no on 39 is because you think that requiring these corporations to pay more in taxes will cause them to have fewer jobs. So basically all you Austrian economic types should be all over the no.

Proposition 40: Yes

Remember 11 and 20? These paved the way for the redistricting that occurred in 2010. Every 10 years, districts are redrawn because people are born, people die, and people move. Generally, Republican-led redistricting efforts result in more gerrymandering than Democratic-led and non-partisan-led efforts. So because Brown won the governorship in 2010 and had large Democratic majorities in the State Senate and Assembly, it should have resulted in more-fair districting. It also meant more Democratic seats because in 2000 the districts were not drawn as fairly, and many hugely Democratic districts were created to make it easier for Republicans to capture other districts.

If that’s not enough, the no campaign suspended its opposition, so why support a side that has already given up. It didn’t work on A Different World when Jesse Jackson tried to help Dwayne Wayne run for office, so it’s not going to work here.

Measure A: Yes

I’ll give the county credit. They know how to get their sales tax increases. They do their homework to figure out how much they can get away with, and they pick an election cycle in which they will get more of the votes they want.

This pragmatism comes into play because the county is only asking for an eighth of a cent sales tax increase. I mean, why fucking bother? It’s kind of a general fund catchall sales tax increase to cover recent cuts to public services to police, hospitals, homeless stuff, etc. They must have figured out a quarter cent wasn’t going to pass, especially considering the economy was worse when it was written. Now, maybe a 1/4-cent increase might have paid off, but we’ll take what we can get.

The same anti-tax people that hate everything the way Grouchy Smurf does are those who are behind the no campaign here. I’ve said enough about these Howard Jarvis cocksuckers already.

Measure B: Yes

B was in danger of not being on the ballot, I believe, because the sample ballot content was two words too long. Well, they must have figured it out because here it is. In short, it is a 15-year extension of a parcel tax set to expire next year. It’s to cover water stuff. There’s always water, education, and road stuff on every ballot. Here’s the water one.

Opponents of B quibble about where the money actually goes, but like a fart, as long as the money goes in the general direction of water works, I’m happy to let the county have a monopoly on my parcel tax money. People that drink bottled water are like people who send their kids to private school. You can if you want, but I’m still going to use the free alternative.

Measure D: Yes

No fucking chance. Minimum wages are usually raised through legislation or other non-direct-voting methods. (There’s a finer way to describe this, but my vocabulary is failing me.) San Jose State students came up with D to raise the minimum wage from $8 to $10. Hell yeah. I will always support a minimum wage increase, especially in a time with falling union enrollment. Business owners who cry about raising prices and firing workers don’t know how to run a fucking business.

Let’s say you have a business where you pay your workers minimum wage. Your labor costs are about 25%, for the sake of argument. (Most service jobs in, say, the fast food industry, tend to result in about a 20% labor cost.) That means your labor costs go up to 31.25%. If your business model depends on these 6.25 percentage points in order to be profitable, then you have a shitty business model. Just because you can legally hire people to do things doesn’t mean it’s good for society. We could do without McDonald’s in any case. Use some creativity and figure out what we need in this demand-driven economy. Fill a void. Don’t just do what other businesses are you doing. “Turnkey business” means “lazy and can’t think for yourself.” There’s a reason why 95% of businesses fail, and it’s staring at you in the mirror.

Measure E: Yes

It’s another cardroom gaming initiative. Right now M8trix and Bay 101 have 49 tables each. If E passes, they can combine to have 128 tables, effective 2013. Effective 2014, each cardroom can have up to 79 tables.

In addition, should slot machines ever become legal in California (not Native American ones), they would now be legal as well in these cardrooms. In addition, voter approval would no longer be required should other types of gambling be decriminalized in California. So if dice games such as craps were decriminalized, they would automatically be permitted in these two cardrooms and not be subject to a vote first.

Previous measures that increased the number of tables also increased the percentage cut that the city got. This one doesn’t do that, although revenue would increase because of the sheer increase of available tables. This would be why you would vote no, if you wanted the cut to go up.

Measure H: Yes

Besides parcel taxes, sometimes school districts float bond measures to get funds to take care of stuff. In this case, San Jose Unified wants $290 million to update classroom technology, increase energy efficiency, and perform basic repairs to existing buildings. It can’t be used for teacher/administrative salaries of any kind. It can be used for the construction salaries that would result from these various changes.

Interest rates are superlow right now. It’s not a bad time for bonds. And of course the improved schools pay dividends in reduced crime and increase property value. You’ve heard this song and dance before. It’s the same shit. And of course the same jackasses are against it. So the anti-tax and libertarian crowds should be voting no. Remember we wouldn’t need any of this if Proposition 13 were repealed. This is just how it works today.